Director of School Relations

Last Updated: 07/20/2026

DIRECTOR OF SCHOOL RELATIONS

OVERVIEW: The Director of School Relations develops and executes sales strategies for all student and educator programs. This role leads a team of school relations representatives to meet annual sales goals and further the mission of Youth Frontiers. The Director ensures existing relationships are nurtured and maintained for successful rebook of annual programs and also fosters a pipeline of new growth necessary to reach annual goals.

POSITION CLASSIFICATION:

• FLSA Exemption Status: Exempt
• Work Schedule: 12-month, Full-Time, M-F, 8am-4:30pm
• Location: In-Office (Edina)
• Basis of Pay: Salary, $85,000 - $95,000 DOQ, bonus potential available
• Department: School Relations
• Benefits: Youth Frontiers offers a robust benefit offering, including 403(b) retirement savings with employer matching, generous PTO, paid volunteer time, and much more!

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES & DUTIES:


Lead School Relations Team

• Develop staff into their roles, guide personal development of team members, align team's strategy with larger organizational vision and initiatives, orient team to goals, inspire productivity, and embody core values and culture.
• Give technical guidance to execute essential functions of employee roles, onboard employees successfully, conduct employee reviews, appropriately answer or direct any questions, help the team navigate the organization and resources, and provide support, assistance, and guidance for the team to succeed.
• Give direct feedback to employees on an ongoing basis, document and address performance metrics, escalate issues to broader leadership or HR, such as reasonable accommodation needs or position change recommendations.

Sales Strategy and Forecasting

• Actively participate in sales strategy sessions and leverage data and expertise to inform annual sales goals set by leadership.
• Work closely with the donor relations team to identify and develop strategic partnerships that involve earned and donated revenue.
• Assign school partner territories and metrics.
• Lead annual school partner audit to illuminate and refine all points of school partner engagement throughout the organization. Maintain in-depth understanding of our markets and sales pipeline to accurately forecast earned revenue for quarterly reviews and annual planning. Elevate emerging trends to the leadership team for discussion and decision-making as needed.
• Develop sales cadences and playbooks in conjunction with the marketing team.
• Develop internal sales training curriculum and toolkit and lead team and org training sessions.

Lead Generation

• Focus personal outreach and opportunity development on a portfolio of key school partnership opportunities.
• Execute daily on best practice playbooks and portfolio plans to achieve conversion results.
• Generate school partner outreach and follow up on referrals, marketing qualified leads, and inbound sales leads.
• Travel as needed to attend industry events and follow-up on leads generated, support and attend YF-hosted events to build new relationships and cultivate sales leads, and host visitors at YF programs to cultivate interest.
• Collaborate with marketing on client communications planning and development. Provide ideas, feedback, and tactical support as requested.
• Achieve and exceed monthly metrics.

School Partner Retention

• Maximize school partner retention by maintaining relationships in school client portfolios through meetings, phone calls, emails and other tactics established in sales playbooks and portfolio plans.
• Ensure school partners are contacted after every program to discuss experience and gather feedback. Record findings in customer relationship management database and elevate intel to appropriate parties.
• Lead school partner rebook process to better serve schools and increase likelihood of retention and new program sales to existing school partners.

Reporting and Analysis

• Track the team's progress towards weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals including call and email cadence, connect rates, meetings booked, pipeline generation and best practice lead conversion rates.
• Review daily activity and productivity metrics dashboard.
• Create and review school relations representatives lead and opportunity conversion reports.
• Oversee weekly sales reporting to ensure accuracy and identify trends.
• Hold the school relations team accountable to utilize the client relationship management database correctly and consistently to ensure the platform remains as accurate and actionable as possible.

All positions at Youth Frontiers may perform other duties as assigned.


Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience
• 5 or more years of experience in school relations, program sales, or education
• 3 or more years of management experience
• Experience growing earned revenue portfolio with school partners, including ability to forecast activity and performance metrics
• Experience working with a CRM
• Strong proficiency in Excel, Google Sheets, and Google Suite
• Excellent organizational skills with exceptional attention to detail
• Ability to manage multiple priorities while meeting deadlines
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Commitment to confidentiality and data accuracy

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Salesforce Nonprofit Support Pack
• Experience with restricted donor funds and cross-functional leadership on donated programs
• Well networked within schools and educational institutions, both public and private

Youth Frontiers seeks to hire from a diverse pool of applicants and encourages people from all backgrounds to apply. Youth Frontiers will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital or familial status, public assistance status or any other legally protected status.